lexluthor

Booked on Norwegian Getaway for 4/24/16 so I'll be following this as well.

We arrived around 11am this past January and were onboard before noon.

And you received this tiered boarding notification a few days prior to your sailing?

Anyone have any more information on this? We are sailing Sunday and I just got the email saying to come at 2:30pm based on the deck we are on.

We've sailed the AOS before and been on board by noon.

Think we'll have an issue if we show up at 11:30am? We are all Platinum.

Would kind of stink to check out of the hotel, get there at 11:30 and not get on until 2:30. But, 2:30 is pretty late to be on board in comparison to all of our previous cruises.

Yes, Bobby is probably doing a 2 month fill-in contract on Adventure

What's he like?

Anyone have any good suggestions for an ATV Tour in St. Lucia?

I'd prefer one where a 16 year old could drive. Been communicating with Trevor at Aanansi and thinking about booking there.

http://www.aanansiatv.com/tours.htm

Anyone have any experience with them?

Any other tour company suggestions?

How are these tours? It sounds more like sightseeing than it is thrill riding, but is the riding of the ATV part fun as well?

Any other suggestions for something somewhat adventurous in St. Lucia? We've already done the ziplining there, so not that.

We did a tour direct through Treetop Adventure Park a couple years back.

http://adventuretourstlucia.com/

They picked us up at the pier. Excellent facility, seemed like a good amount of ziplines. Had a great day.

Non-zipliners in our group did a nature walk tour there and loved that as well.

Think Bobby Brown will still be on the Adventure for our 4/5 sailing? Anyone know anything about him?

We've had Mercedes before and really disliked her (she was boring) so at least hoping she's not back then.

Our group of 12 went to treetop adventure park a couple years back. 5 of us did the zipline and the other 7 did the rainforest adventure hike.

I ziplined and it was great. The people who did the hike thoroughly enjoyed their day as well.

Anyone heard anything about these sailings yet? They still have not returned.

I called Royal because we wanted to book the April 24th sailing on the Jewel and was told it would still be in dry dock. it appears that something else is going on though since the April 23rd Adventure also disappeared. Wish I would have booked when I first saw it.

Same here. I saw 2 insides on the 4/23 AOS for something like $2200.

Also, it doesn't sound like they aren't their due to a dry dock issue because AOS and JOS are both gone, and for multiple sailings.

Is it common for sailings to not be bookable and then come back as they were before?

Also, on another note, if they do come back, I would be tempted to do the 4/24 JOS it really is right after dry dock. But, is there some added risk with the potential of the dry dock being extended or does that not really happen ever?

I did call RC the other day and the rep said that the sailing was "open" meaning it was still listed, but it wasn't bookable. He couldn't really tell me any more.

Anyone know what happened to the April, 2016 sailings on the Adventure and Jewel?

I saw a great price with the BOGOHO promo on the 4/23/16 sailing on the Adventure the other day, but now it just says N/A if I go to the listing.

Jewel sailings are gone as well.

I think the early 4/2016 sailings are there, but the mid-late month ones still show a listing, but can't book.

Great review and pictures! Very excited to be sailing on FOS in September.

 

Question about Labadee. I've been there once before in 2007, pre- renovations. Has there always been a pier in Labadee? We were there on Mariner and I thought we tendered over. I know we for sure tendered in Coco Cay. We haven't been there in a while either!

I think the pier in Labadee is only a couple/few years old. CocoCay is still via tender.

Also, don't forget they will cash one check up to $200 for no fee if you are a little short or want to bring a little less with you.

You can see some of the work being done in this thread

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2018790

AOS is in dry dock now.

Follow along here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2018790

We've done both the Adventure and Brilliance out of San Juan and much preferred the Adventure. The Royal Promenade is nice to have.

We have even booked the Adventure out of San Juan again for in April, 2015.

We are trying an even larger ship, the Freedom, next week, so we are excited to see how that goes too.

We are planning on doing Rio Bueno White Water rafting with Courtney Taylor tours off the Freedom next week.

My wife recently hurt her back and may opt out of the rafting.

If she still comes with us, is she able to sit at the beach that we eventually wind up at and wait for us while we do the rafting?

I'm not sure if the place where we start off going to when we get there is the place we wind up at the end of the rafting.

Does anyone know?

(If anyone knows the whereabouts of other former RCI cruise directors, I'd be happy to add them to the end of this list, as there seems to be a lot of questions about them)

We had Abel Jeney a couple of years ago on the AOS and he was excellent.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Abel/Jeney

He's now apparently International Manager chez Kingswood Education and Adventure in London.

... and this is the reason the surcharge was added in the first place. People were pulling thousands of dollars to redeposit ashore which of course costs RCI money.

I wasn't going to do that, but poeple would.

Anyhow, I see you have to have a pretty high mlife tier to get this benefit anyhow.

There is a charge unless you are a club royale member or an mlife member.

 

Depending on what you need to draw it is probably cheaper to use the ATM onboard. I think it was about $6 the last time I checked for ATM fee plus anything your bank may charge, so if drawing over $120 or so would be better option.

So if I bring my mlife card I got in Vegas, I can get cash at the casino with no surcharge?

Sounds like a good way to make 2% (cc cash back) :)

Can I do this multiple times?

How long is AOS going in for dry dock? Any idea what they will be doing yet?

We have a reservation on it for next April.

We have a cruise coming up in less than 3 weeks, but want to book a cruise for next April now. Is there any way we could still get the next booking credit applied to the reservation once we get on the ship?

We are going to Gaudeloupe next Spring, so interested in hearing more about it.

We did the Adventure w/St. Croix and St. Lucia this Spring.

St. Croix wasn't really much. We walked to the beach at a nearby resort. Didn't feel overly comfortable with the walk and it was pretty run down.

On the other hand, St. Lucia is absolutely beautiful. We did the treetop adventure park there and had a blast.

 

Not to step on any toes, but I can't recommend highly enough going to Chakanaab park and swimming with dolphins. You can book through the park. Do the Royal Swim. Was our highlight of that trip.

We also went to Chakanaab. Took a cab there and when we got there, we had no intention of doing the dolphin swim, but the had people standing there offering large discounts it and made it a no-brainer.

IIRC, you can also rent snorkel gear and do snorkel off the beach. I recall it being pretty decent snorkeling.

The park was relatively empty when we were there.

Would also highly recommend the trip there. Huge savings over similar ship sponsored excursions.